Wish Upon A Scam

We hope that the best possible versions of ourselves are the ones people will see. Sometimes, we’re mistaken.

Recently, to celebrate my 29th birthday, I gifted myself an expensive facial serum that claims to brighten skin and protect it from the surrounding world.

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You could, I guess, call the purchase an attempt to reproduce in reality the fictional appearance of my face on Snapchat, where a range of beauty filters smooth over blemishes, enlarge eyes, thin the nose and jaw, and warm or lighten the tone of skin. (The app also offers a rotating stable of filters that distort your appearance comically, which I feel less drawn to.) With its built-in ephemerality, Snapchat is commonly understood as a place to enjoy being yourself, flaws and all. But given the tools, apparently, I’d rather appear in public with no flaws.

On first glance, that impulse seems like a totally bad thing — like one that indicates I’ve fallen prey to narrow standards of beauty, or a general pressure to look young and good. And, in fact, it might be. But I take pleasure in filtering my face because the result feels familiar, even when it looks uncanny. I know I don’t actually look digitally airbrushed, but after years of subtly manipulating my appearance online, I am used to imagining myself as a more alluring version of myself. Snapchat’s too-perfect version of me is transparently false, which makes it feel, to me, almost more honest than a candid photo.

I take pleasure in filtering my face because the result feels familiar, even when it looks uncanny.

In all of their stories, there’s some wishful thinking — that the best possible versions of ourselves are the ones people will see. Like I play around with the idea of appearing faultless, Gucci imagines he will remain sober, Charli envisions an intellectual life as a “dumb” pop star, Denis Cuspert wishes to feel righteous and strong, and Joanne scams herself into lasting cultural relevance. The truth is probably more complicated, and certainly subject to change: to maintain sobriety can be a daily struggle, making pop music does not necessarily make anyone more popular, jihadists hurt people in their quest to make the world better, and even scammers get scammed.

“You have a sickness,” my partner told me recently, referring to my habit of almost constantly taking selfies with my iPhone camera. Unlike what I do on Snapchat, these pictures have no filters and no setup. I think I take them because I’m bored, or to literally check in on what I look like: if my hair has fallen in the right place, or if that expensive serum is doing anything. Or maybe I take them because I am trying to figure out who I am, so that as it changes, I don’t lose track, and can maintain control. I don’t post these selfies on the internet, or send them to a group chat. I don’t share them with anyone.